[ganong] INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE 391 



a branch of Elliott River; and it is wholly probable that this River is the CHEG- 

 WACADIE. 



It is quite probable that the name which figures so prominently on 

 the early French maps as CHACODI, a branch of the Miramichi River in 

 New Brunswick, has an identical origin, as has been noted above (page 390). 



CHIKSOGUNSACADIE. The Micmac name, in much simplified form, of 

 Busteed's Brook, a well-known place on the Quebec side of the Restigouche below 

 Campbellton, according to Father Pacifique, who gives me the name as 

 TJIGTJAOIGENETJOEGATIG, with the meaning PLACE OF ROSE BER- 

 RIES. The construction of the name is clear, for the latter part is Father Pacifique's 

 equivalent of our familiar combination -A-KA'DI-K, earlier explained (page 379), 

 while the former part is as clearly identical with CHIKCHOWEGUNECH, meaning 

 ROSE BERRY (Rand, First Reading Book, 70). Thus the word in full would be 

 CHiKCHOWËGÛNËCH-Â-KA'DI-K, meaning literally ROSE BERRY-THEIR- 

 OCCURRENCE-PLACE, which is presumably descriptive of a feature of the 

 locality. 



Cohhosseecontee. 



The name of a Stream in Maine, entering the Kennebec from the west at Gardi- 

 ner, seven miles below the head of tide at Augusta; also a Pond through which it 

 flows. The surprisingly cumbersome spelling is that of the standard large-scale map 

 of the United States Geological Survey. 



It appears first as COBESTCONT in 1630 in the Plymouth Patent (Burrage's 

 Beginnings of Colonial Maine, 187); it is COBBISECONTE on an important map 

 of about 1754 {op. cit., opposite page 187); and in a deposition of 1767 by William 

 Lithgow, a resident of the Kennebec who knew the place and Indians well, it occurs 

 as CAVV-BIS-SE-CON-TEAGUE {New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 

 XXIV, 1870, 23; and, in somewhat different form, in Collections of the Maine Historical 

 Society, IV, 1856, 112). In this important document, furthermore, we find the 

 origin of the name very clearly given, for it reads, in connection with the Point on 

 the south side of the stream where it joins the Kennebec, "a small point of Land 

 called by the Natives Caw-bis-se-conteague," and adds that the Indians, being asked 

 why they called the Point by that name, answered, "because the Sturgeon Fish 

 jumped in the River Kennebeck opposite that Point in great plenty." This name 

 "being englished signifies Sturgeon Land." With this very definite information to 

 aid, the construction of the word COBBOSSEECONTEE becomes abundantly 

 clear. The Abenaki word for Sturgeon, according to Rasle's great Dictionary, 510, 

 is KEBASSÉ; the latter part of the word seems as clearly the Abenaki suffix KANTI- 

 (K), the exact equivalent of thé Micmac KA'DI-(K), meaning OCCURRENCE- 

 (PLACE), as already explained (page 377); while the usual intermediate possessive 

 WE, meaning ITS or THEIR, seems obviously condensed with the similar termin- 

 ation of KEBASSE. Lithgow's elaborate termination GUE is obviously equivalent 

 to our locative -K. Thus the word in full would be KEBASSÉ-(WE)-KANTI-(K), 

 meaning literally STURGEON -(THEI R)-OCCURRENCE-(PLACE). This explan- 

 ation is given in brief by Trumbull, in his very authoritative work on Algonkin 

 place-names {Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, II, 1870, 26, 42), although 

 his suggestion that KEBASSÉ is perhaps also involved in COBSCOOK, has been 

 shown earlier in this series to be groundless {these Transactions, VII, 1913, ii, 105). 

 The explanation involving STURGEON has also been given, apparently independ- 

 ently, by Sullivan and by Williamson, in their Histories of Maine, and by many other 

 writers. 



Sec. I and II, 1915—26 



